Stop Yucca Mountain!

Proposed Nuclear Waste Dump Endangers All Americans

Tim Judson

By the end of June, the US Senate will vote on whether to designate
Yucca Mountain in Nevada the world's first permanent repository for
high-level nuclear waste. Citizens Awareness Network is joining four other groups in
a nation-wide "Nuke Waste Wagon Train" to alert and inform people and
mobilize opposition to nuclear waste dumping, with the immediate focus on
pressuring Senators to oppose Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain is unsuitable and
unacceptable as a nuclear waste dump. It is not a solution for long-lived
radioactive wastes_ethically, scientifically, or in
terms of national security.

ETHICALLY:

 The Yucca proposal is environmental
racism. Yucca Mountain lies on sacred lands of the Western Shoshone
Nation_lands that have never legally been ceded to the US government. Shoshone
land has already been contaminated by 1,000 nuclear weapons tests. The sacrifice of indigenous peoples
and their lands is environmental racism and must stop.

 The Yucca proposal is
undemocratic.80% of Nevadans, the Governor, and the Congressional delegation are opposed to
the dump. Yucca Mountain can only be sited by violating
democracy through the use Eminent Domain. Waste from
117 commercial reactors and more than a dozen military sites will
be transported cross country on trucks, trains, and barges,
regardless of states' and local communities' opposition.

SCIENTIFICALLY:

The Department of Energy (DOE) and President
Bush officially recommended Yucca Mountain in January, but
Congress must vote on it because Nevada's Governor vetoed
the decision. The recommendation was supposed to be based
on sound science, but the facts show that the push for
Yucca Mountain is based on politics.

 Yucca Mountain is too unstable for nuclear
waste. There are 33 active earthquake faults under or near Yucca
Mountain. There is an active volcano less than 10 miles away
and evidence of a magma pocket beneath the mountain.
Despite being in the desert, there is significant groundwater: in
the tunnels, electronic equipment has been ruined by
dampness in the caverns; groundwater migrates from the surface in
less than 40 years.

 The government knows Yucca
Mountain will leak. The scientific debate is
no longer about whether the dump will leak. It's about
when. The Department of Energy's standards only require that
the dump keep waste from leaking for 10,000 years _ less than half of the first
half-life of plutonium (24,000 years). Yucca sits above an aquifer that provides water
for much of the Southwest US. Once waste begins leaking, it could contaminate
drinking water in less than 70 years.

 There is no scientific basis for
approving Yucca Mountain.In January,
the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board characterized the DOE's scientific
research as "weak to moderate." Last Fall_after
15 years and $7 billion of research_the US General Accounting Office found that
DOE still had to resolve 293 technical issues before it could make a scientifically
sound decision. Bechtel, the DOE's largest contractor, estimates it would take until at
least 2006 to complete the research necessary for a sound scientific decision.

SAFETY :

 Transportation is dangerous and
unjustified. A single irradiated fuel assembly contains up to 10 times the
radioactive material released by the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.
Truck shipments of waste will contain several fuel assemblies,
and train and barge shipments will contain up to 68 fuel
assemblies. The DOE estimates up to 10 transport accidents
per year, with shipments continuing for 25-30 years.

 Nuclear waste is a target for
terrorism. The "War on Terrorism" and the US's role in the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict are breeding more anger and animosity. Shipments will
travel within one mile of 50 million people's homes, making
them an ideal "dirty bomb" for attacks on US civilians.

 Yucca Mountain will not protect reactor
communities. Storage facilities on reactor sites will remain
unprotected while waste awaits transportation and more waste is
generated. The dump will only be large enough to store
waste generated before 2001. By 2030, there will as much
waste left in temporary storage as permanently dumped in
Yucca Mountain.

Contact your Senators each week until the vote and demand that they oppose
Yucca Mountain and support Nevada Governor Guinn's veto of the site designation.
Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121 or toll-free 1-(888) 554-9256. Sign the petition
at www.yuccapetition.org. Contact Central New York-CAN for more info on Yucca
Mountain and the Nuke Waste Wagon Train (315) 425-0430 or www.nukebusters.org.

Tim Judson is a member of the CNY-Citizens Awareness Network, and will be
traveling on the Nuke Waste Wagon Train this month.